Interfacial potential approach for Ag/ZnO (0001) interfaces

Abstract

Systematic approaches are presented to extract the interfacial potentials from the ab initio adhesive energy of the interface system by using the Chen—Möbius inversion method. We focus on the interface structure of the metal (111)/ZnO (0001) in this work. The interfacial potentials of Ag—Zn and Ag—O are obtained. These potentials can be used to solve some problems about Ag/ZnO interfacial structure. Three metastable interfacial structures are investigated in order to check these potentials. Using the interfacial potentials we study the procedure of interface fracture in the Ag/ZnO (0001) interface and discuss the change of the energy, stress, and atomic structures in tensile process. The result indicates that the exact misfit dislocation reduces the total energy and softens the fracture process. Meanwhile, the formation and mobility of the vacancy near the interface are observed.